An insight into the world of films from a girl obsessed with jellyfish

Day 50 – The Bridge

I watched a film I enjoyed. This time, I felt like I should tackle one that I didn’t want to watch, but I knew I had to watch. Day 50 is one I will never forget.

The Bridge. A documentary that captures 24 suicides on camera, and speaks to the loved one of those who jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Usually, I watch these films because friends have told me to. This one I felt I had to watch after reading 5-Word Movie Reviews’ post on this film. When reading it, I knew it was something that I could never imagine myself wanting to ever watch. And that was why I knew I had to watch. He warns you that this film will be hard to watch.

There have never been truer words.

If you decide to watch this film, you will see 23 people kill themselves. No joke. I have just seen 23 men and women jump off of the Golden Gate Bridge. I feel a little bit sick at myself for willingly putting myself through this. Why the hell would I want to watch those people ending their lives? Surely I must be a twisted person?

But this film isn’t like that. It doesn’t make you feel sick and twisted. There is no pleasure to be found in the moments that you see those people jump. But there isn’t horror either. Not really. It’s just fact. These people have had enough. And so they decide to end it. End of. It’s really that simple. And it is a hard thing to make yourself sit and watch. But once you start, you really can’t stop the film. It wouldn’t be respectable.

The people that talk about their lost ones are not to be judged either. As the film started, I did feel obliged to judge them, but as the film moves on, I judged them less and less. How do we know how we would react if our loved one told us they were going to kill themselves? We don’t. So we cannot judge them. As stated in the 5-Word Movie Review post about this film, the only woman that I still feel compelled to judge is the woman who knew that her friend was going to commit suicide, and yet she told him that she wanted to be alone. That woman will feel guilty for the rest of her life, and if I’m completely honest, so she should be.

The hardest part for me was the ending. The final jumper was one that we had been following all through the film. And for some reason, I hoped that he wouldn’t do it. I knew he would, but there was that one part of me that begged the movie to change. I wanted him to live. And then he jumped. Or rather, he climbed onto the rail, stood up, arms stretched out and fell. It looked so graceful…but it drove a pain into my heart that I really wasn’t expecting. Sitting in my living room watching this film, I had been relatively quiet. But that final suicide made me gasp and tear up. It may have surprised my housemate a little (who has also seen this film), but I really couldn’t help it. It hurt me. And I can’t explain why.

This is a very hard film to watch. I can’t say that I enjoyed it, because that would make me feel like a sick-minded girl. But I can’t say that I hated it either. I won’t ever want to watch it again, but I’m not sorry that I watched it. As for my recommendations, I really can’t say. If you read this review and, like I did, feel like you need to watch it, then I think the question has been answered. But if you sit there reading this and feel like you can’t watch it, then do not watch it. If you don’t feel right in watching a film like this, it’s not a bad thing. And no one will hold it against you.